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The    Fomance    of   the    Bibliophile 
Soe?  ety 


By 

Nathan  Haskell  Dole 


THE  ROMANCE  OF 
HE  BIBLIOPHILE  SOCIETY 


THE  ROMANCE  OF 
THE  BIBLIOPHILE  SOCIETY 


•  •    « 

•  •  • 

I  «  •  • 


••     •••«•••• 


■   •  •  . 


•  •  •••  v 

•    •  •      •  • 


THE  ROMANCE  OF  THE  BIBLIOPHILE 

SOCIETY 

By  Nathan  Haskell  Dole 

The  purpose  of  this  article  is  not  to  boast  the 
eminent  success  of  The  Bibliophile  Society,  but 
7   merely  to  call  the  attention  of  the  members  — 
and  especially  those  who  have  joined  in  recent 
iV   years  —  to  certain  concrete  facts  which  must 
surely  appear  more  or  less  romantic,  even  to 
many  of  our  charter  members.     There  are  in- 
deed charter  members  who,  although  they  have 
^i   acquired  the  publications  in  an  unbroken  series 
;  from  the  beginning,  are  not  fully  cognizant  of 
}  the  potentiality  and  uniqueness  of  the  organ- 
ization to  which  they  belong. 

The  writer  was,  so  to  speak,  one  of  the  origi- 
nal accoucheurs  at  The  Bibliophile  Society's 
birth,  and  for  the  first  ten  years  of  its  existence 
was  its  President;  and  although  deeming  it 

[  3  ] 


I 


16 


best  at  the  end  of  that  time  to  resign,  so  as  to 
bring  about  some  rotation  of  office,  he  has 
never  in  the  least  lost  interest  in  its  affairs; 
therefore  he  makes  no  apology  for  presumption 
in  chronicling  the  rather  romantic  history  of 
the  organization. 

On  February  5,  1901,  practically  beginning 
with  the  new  century,  The  Bibliophile  Society 
was  formed  and  incorporated,  having  tor  its 
object  "the  study  and  promotion  of  the  arts 
pertaining  to  fine  book-making  and  illustrating, 
and  the  occasional  publication  of  specially  de- 
signed and  illustrated  books,  for  distribution 
among  its  members  at  a  minimum  cost  of  pro- 
duction." 

The  gratifying  response  to  the  first  lot  of  an- 
nouncements sent  out  proved  that  "the  kindred 
interests  of  bibliophiles  are  of  themselves  suf- 
ficient to  sustain  a  mutual  compact  to  cherish 
their  common  interests  quite  independently  of 
the  elements  of  proximity  and  personal  acqaint- 
anceship,"  and  in  a  few  months  the  member- 
ship limit  was  reached  and  the  initial  publica- 
tion was  begun. 

In  a  sense  the  genial  Quintus  Horatius  Flac- 
cus,  friend  of  Augustus  Caesar  and  Maecenas, 

1 4 1 


was  the  patron  saint  of  our  organization.  A 
small  Horace  Society  with  members  belonging 
to  several  colleges  had  been  struggling  along 
for  some  years,  occupying  itself  chiefly  with  in- 
terpretative readings  whenever  the  members 
met.  Eventually  it  occurred  to  one  of  the  non- 
collegiate  members,  John  Paul  Bocock,  that  it 
might  be  an  appropriate  scheme  to  bring  out  an 
edition  of  Horace  with  translations;  but  the 
club  was  not  sufficiently  endowed  with  money 
and  members  to  do  this.  About  this  time  the 
unorganized  forces  of  the  new-born  Bibliophile 
Society  were  casting  about  for  an  appropriate 
foundation  stone,  and  Mr.  Bocock,  having 
heard  of  the  new  book  society,  presented  his 
ideas  for  the  Horace  publication,  which  were 
promptly  accepted.  He  was  made  a  member 
of  the  Council  and  editor-in-chief  of  the  notes 
and  translations  of  the  projected  edition,  while 
Clement  Lawrence  Smith,  LL.D.,  professor  of 
Latin  in  Harvard  University,  undertook  to  edit 
the  Latin  text. 

In  due  time  Mr.  Bocock  furnished  an  extra- 
ordinary undigested  mass  of  material  consisting 
of  notes  and  translations  of  Horace,  amounting 
in  all  to  nearly  a  thousand  pages  of  manuscript. 

[  5  ] 


A  cursory  examination  —  the  adjective  is  ap- 
plicable even  if  the  accent  be  doubly  applied  to 
the  first  syllable  —  showed  that  his  treatment 
of  the  matter  was  quite  inadequate  to  our  re- 
quirements. A  letter  was  despatched  to  him 
telling  him  that  the  style  and  treatment  of  the 
odes  would  have  to  be  greatly  modified.  He  re- 
plied very  curtly  that  the  manuscript  was  writ- 
ten just  as  he  wanted  it  and  that  it  would  have 
to  be  printed  exactly  as  it  was  written.  As  the 
easiest  way  out  of  the  difficulty  he  was  paid  the 
stipulated  price  for  his  work  and  was  allowed 
to  withdraw,  which  he  did  in  high  dudgeon. 

Then  the  Treasurer  and  the  President  took 
the  quarry  to  a  certain  sky-den  in  a  newly-built 
house  on  Israel's  Head  at  Ogunquit,  Maine, 
overlooking  the  much-roaring  sea,  and  spent 
many  long  weeks  in  reading,  recasting,  revis- 
ing, changing,  adding,  polishing,  substituting 
more  elegant  English  for  slipshod  sentences, 
and  gradually  getting  the  huge  pile  of  material 
into  shape  fit  for  publication. 

On  one  occasion  an  ink-bottle  was  inadver- 
tently overturned  on  the  virgin  floor  and  al- 
though sapolio  and  milk  and  sand  and  hot 
water  were  applied  the  boards  still  keep  the 

t  6  ] 


stain  of  that  unfortunate  accident,  and  serve 
each  summer  to  recall  the  mighty  labors  ex- 
pended in  those  early  days  of  our  Society's  his- 
tory. Who  knows  but  that  in  time  to  come  it 
may  serve  as  an  object  of  veneration  and  pil- 
grimage and  require  a  commemorative  tablet, 
just  as  the  muddy  stain  from  the  glass  of  wine 
spilt  by  General  Lafayette  on  that  new  carpet 
in  the  Sherburne  House  in  Portsmouth  is  now 
displayed  with  more  pride  than  anything  else 
in  the  fine  old  mansion.  At  all  events  the  for- 
mer president  of  The  Bibliophile  Society  would 
be  proud  to  conduct  any  member  to  that  giddy 
height  where  the  ink-spot  makes  a  little  black- 
and-white  wash-drawing  on  the  floor !  It  may 
be  added  that  this,  the  first  distinct  mark  made 
in  the  world  by  The  Bibliophile  Society,  forms 
no  blot  upon  its  present  escutcheon. 

It  was  no  easy  task  to  collect  and  arrange  in 
chronological  sequence  the  bibliography  of  all 
the  hundreds  of  editions  of  Horace,  to  read  the 
proofs  and  decide  all  the  moot  questions  that 
came  up  as  the  enterprise  proceeded.  I  am 
free  to  confess  that  the  Treasurer,  who  rarely 
permits  anything  to  interrupt  steady  applica- 
tion, must  have  felt  a  little  annoyed  when  his 

[  7  ] 


co-worker  would  occasionally  suspend  labor  for 
an  hour  or  so  in  the  middle  of  the  forenoon  to 
take  advantage  of  the  tide  for  his  daily  plunge. 
It  was  a  happy  thought  of  Mr.  Harper's  to 
invite  various  members  of  the  Society  to  take 
part  in  editing  the  Fourth  Book  of  the  Horace, 
printing  the  favorite  translation  of  each  op- 
posite the  ode  assigned  and  contributing  to 
each  a  bibliographical  or  personal  note.  Mr. 
Harper  himself  set  the  example  in  selecting  the 
translations  and  contributing  a  scholarly  intro- 
duction to  the  fourth  ode.  That  was  a  distin- 
guished corps  of  collaborators:  Doctor  Kirby 
Flower  Smith,  of  Johns  Hopkins  University; 
Howard  J.  Rogers,  superintendent  of  public 
instruction  for  the  state  of  New  York;  the  Hon. 
Whitelaw  Reid,  United  States  ambassador  to 
England;  George  Alfred  Stringer;  Professor 
William  P.  Trent,  of  Columbia  University; 
Professor  Theodore  M.  Barber;  "Governor" 
John  D.  Long,  statesman,  poet,  wit  and  friend 
of  inextinguishable  memory;  Roswell  Field, 
whose  collaboration  with  his  brother  Eugene 
Field  in  rendering  Horace  into  light  and  grace- 
ful English  made  the  volume  of  Echoes  from  the 
Sabine  Farm  one  of  the  treasures  of  literature ; 

[  8  ] 


Charles  E.  Hurd,  painter,  scholar,  and  literary 
editor  of  the  Boston  Transcript  —  also  one  of 
the  Council  until  his  lamented  death ;  the  Hon. 
Henry  Wayland  Hill,  of  Buffalo;  the  Hon. 
Henry  Hitchcock,  at  that  time  Secretary  of  the 
Interior;  and  last  in  order,  but  not  least,  the 
Hon.  Henry  Cabot  Lodge,  senator  from  Mass- 
achusetts, who  is  still  a  member  of  the  Council. 
The  President  also  contributed  his  mite  in  edit- 
ing one  of  the  odes,  to  which  he  furnished  his 
own  translation.  In  format,  in  style  of  print- 
ing, in  richness  of  page  margins,  in  appropri- 
ateness of  decoration,  the  Bibliophile  Horace 
immediately  attracted  wide  attention,  and  at 
many  auctions  in  subsequent  years,  its  appear- 
ance on  sale  elicited  lively  competition. 

Speaking  of  auction-sales,  the  Society  has 
consistently  discouraged  judgment  of  the  vol- 
umes by  the  prices  current  at  such  competitions, 
One  member,  disloyal  to  the  principles  on  which 
the  Society  was  founded,  —  and  who  was  quiet- 
ly dropped  from  the  roster  because  it  was  dis- 
covered that  as  soon  as  he  obtained  his  allotted 
volumes  they  were  sent  to  the  block,- — com- 
plained, asserting  that  he  supposed  he  was 
fulfilling  his  membership  requirements  if  he 

[    9    ] 


subscribed  for  all  the  issues.  While  there  is  no 
specific  rule  preventing  members  from  doing  as 
they  please  with  their  books,  yet  considering 
the  fact  that  generous  members  have  loaned  us 
valuable  MSS.  to  print,  without  accepting  any 
compensation  for  the  publication  rights,  and 
considering  also  the  amount  of  gratuitous  labor 
involved,  it  will  be  seen  that  the  completed 
books  carry  a  considerable  valuation  not  actu- 
ally included  in  their  cost  to  members;  there- 
fore under  the  circumstances  the  Council  has 
what  may  be  termed  a  moral  right  to  expel  a 
member  whose  motives  in  joining  are  mani- 
festly opposed  to  the  avowed  principles  of  the 
Society.  Members  have  occasionally  encoun- 
tered hard  times  and  been  obliged  to  liquidate 
their  assets;  and  I  wonder  how  many  such 
members  our  Treasurer  has  quietly  assisted  by 
arranging  for  the  transfer  of  their  Bibliophile 
books  to  new  members  who  desired  to  complete 
their  files,  or  in  buying  them  outright  and  dis- 
tributing them  among  members  with  no  at- 
tempt at  speculation. 

It  has  been  remarkable  what  high  prices 
have  been  obtained  for  certain  issues,  for  the 
comparatively  large  membership  and  the  usual 

[   io  ] 


habit  of  a  large  percentage  of  the  members  to 
subscribe  for  all  the  issues  has  not  made  the 
limit  of  issue  very  small.  The  anecdote  is  well 
authenticated  of  a  man  who,  holding  the  only 
two  extant  copies  of  a  famous  book,  deliber- 
ately destroyed  one  of  them  so  as  to  make  the 
other  unique.  The  Society  has  had  no  such 
selfish  estimate  of  the  value  of  books.  It  has 
been  the  purpose  to  have  a  large  number  of 
book-lovers  interested  in  the  same  treasures 
and  not  to  restrict  the  number  of  copies  below 
reasonable  limits.  For  this  reason  also  the  So- 
ciety has  carefully  chosen  its  product  in  the 
light  of  intrinsic  merit.  They  are  all  books  to 
read  and  reread,  to  display  not  merely  because 
they  are  rare  but  because  they  are  beautiful  — 
beautiful  in  typography,  beautiful  in  paper, 
beautiful  in  decoration ;  in  a  word,  beautiful  in 
everything  that  goes  to  make  the  perfect  vol- 
ume. If  they  bring  high  prices  at  sales,  it  is 
because  of  their  intrinsic  worth,  and  the  fur- 
ther fact  that  owners,  and  often  the  heirs  of 
the  original  members,  hold  closely  to  them,  con- 
tinue the  membership,  and  in  turn  become  en- 
thusiastic adherents  to  the  principles  of  the 
Society. 

[  »  ] 


More  than  one  member,  as  I  happen  to  know, 
has  devoted  a  special  room  to  the  collection,  ar- 
raying the  prints  on  the  walls  and  preserving 
the  attractive  prospectuses  of  the  publications, 
for  these  have  been  printed  with  care  and  due 
regard  for  appropriateness,  and  represent  no 
small  thought.  The  complete  series  of  Biblio- 
phile volumes  present  a  united  front,  so  to 
speak;  they  represent  a  small  army  of  —  well, 
let  us  say  steadfast  friends,  for  all  books  worth 
anything  are  friends.  They  possess  a  distinct 
individuality,  both  separately  and  collectively. 
Grouped  together  on  the  library  shelves  they 
present  a  cynosure  upon  which  the  eye  of  the 
most  casual  observer  will  invariably  rest,  and 
when  examined  scrutinizingly  they  are  at  once 
the  pride  of  their  possessor  and  the  envy  of 
his  bibliopolic  friends.  The  Bibliophile  books, 
moreover,  are  truly  representative  of  the  age  in 
which  they  are  produced;  and  as  the  poetry  of 
Dante,  because  it  accurately  portrays  the  spirit 
and  manners  of  its  age,  will  live  through  all 
time,  so  in  generations  and  centuries  to  come 
the  series  of  volumes  issued  by  The  Bibliophile 
Society  will  attain  historic  importance  not  alone 
for  their  literary  contents,  but  as  the  represen- 

[    12    ] 


tative  labors  of  the  best  artists,  the  best  etchers 
and  engravers,  the  best  printers  and  other  arti- 
sans, and  as  typifying  the  best  taste  of  the  era 
in  which  they  were  produced. 

The  long  list  of  elaborate  engraved  title- 
pages  alone  makes  the  volumes  unique  in  the 
annals  of  fine  bookmaking.  In  this  group  of 
titlepages  —  most  of  them  costing  well  up  into 
the  hundreds  of  dollars  —  is  now  to  be  found 
the  finest  work  of  nearly  every  American  cop- 
per plate  engraver  of  note  in  the  early  part  of 
the  twentieth  century.  The  Horace  and  First 
Year  Book  have  titlepages  from  direct  process 
plates  after  original  pen  drawings  by  the  late 
Howard  Pyle ;  two  of  the  Year  Books  have  title- 
pages  designed  and  etched  by  Sidney  Smith; 
the  Andre  Journal  and  the  Lamb  Letters  con- 
tain examples  of  the  finest,  and  almost  the  last, 
work  of  Edwin  D.  French  —  indeed  they  repre- 
sent two  of  the  only  four  titlepages  by  him  that 
were  ever  published.  A  single  proof  print  of 
the  Andre  Journal  titlepage  has  been  known  to 
sell  for  more  than  the  original  cost  of  a  com- 
plete copy  of  the  work.  The  clever  handiwork  of 
the  late  J.  A.  J.  Wilcox  is  to  be  found  in  the  vol- 
umes of  Theocritus,  Bion  &  Moschus,  the  Varick 

[  13  ] 


Court  of  Inquiry,  and  one  of  the  Year  Books. 
The  Payne-Shelley  volume  and  the  Dickens- 
Beadnell  Correspondence  were  adorned  by  elab- 
orate titlepages  designed  and  engraved  by  F.  S. 
King.  W.  H.  W.  Bicknell  etched  on  copper  the 
charming  titlepages  to  Rossetti's  Poem  "Der 
arme  Heinrich,"  the  poem  by  Keats  addressed 
to  his  sister  Fannie,  and  the  Bryant  and  Tho- 
reau  poems  —  the  latter  two  publications  being 
printed  entirely  on  sheepskin  parchment.  And 
this  same  brilliant  artist  has  furnished  no  less 
than  half  a  hundred  other  examples  of  his  work, 
besides  the  two  portfolios  of  large  etchings  and 
portraits  which  are  recognized  as  masterpieces 
in  that  noble  art. 

One  of  our  own  members,  Mr.  W.  F.  Hop- 
son,  designed  and  engraved  the  admirable  title- 
pages  to  Thoreau's  Walden  and  the  Sixth  Year 
Book.  He  also  engraved  on  wood  the  first 
plate  made  for  the  Society  and  this  reproduced 
on  copper  by  the  late  J.  W.  Spenceley  has  been 
used  for  a  subtitle  in  nearly  every  publication 
we  have  put  forth, — being  always  changed  to 
suit  the  name,  year,  and  limit  of  each  work. 

Our  Seventh  Year  Book  contains  Spenceley's 
last  important  piece  of  engraving;  he  finished 

[  14  ] 


it  when  in  the  last  stages  of  the  slow  but  surely 
fatal  malady  which  snatched  him  from  us  in 
the  very  prime  of  life.  He  took  infinite  pains 
with  that  work,  making  no  less  than  five  dis- 
tinct changes  after  the  original  sketch.  He  de- 
clared it  to  be  one  of  the  most  satisfactory 
pieces  he  ever  did. 

The  Year  Books  of  the  Society  contain  vastly 
more  of  literary  value  than  the  term  "Year 
Book"  would  imply.  Indeed  the  reports  of 
committees  and  officers  form  but  a  small  part 
of  their  contents.  They  contain  many  original 
articles  and  essays  on  topics  of  interest  to  bib- 
liophiles, and  are  also  used  as  a  sort  of  repos- 
itory, so  to  speak,  for  unpublished  literary  gems 
that  are  of  insufficient  length  to  justify  their  pub- 
lication in  separate  volumes.  There  is  scarcely 
a  volume  among  the  fifteen  Year  Books  already 
issued  but  what  contains  one  or  more  items 
which  if  printed  separately  would  bring  more 
than  the  cost  of  the  entire  book.  If  The  Biblio- 
phile Society  had  never  printed  anything  but 
its  series  of  Year  Books  its  existence  would 
have  been  amply  justified. 

A  paragraph  in  this  connection  is  due  to  the 
extraordinary  volume  containing  Mr.  Arthur 

[  15 1 


N.  Macdonald's  copper-plate  edition  of  Burns's 
"Cotter's  Saturday  Night."  It  has  been  one  of 
the  principles  of  the  management  of  the  Soci- 
ety to  encourage  the  allied  arts  of  printing  and 
engraving  and  to  stimulate  them  by  giving 
unusual  opportunities  to  those  who  practice 
them.  It  had  long  been  Mr.  Macdonald's  ambi- 
tion to  produce  some  monumental  work,  and 
he  was  allowed  not  only  sufficient  time  to  sat- 
isfy his  most  fastidious  taste  but  also  a  monthly 
income  sufficient  to  relieve  his  mind  from  all 
financial  worriment.  The  text  and  the  embel- 
lishments were  all  engraved  with  what  it  is 
now  fashionable  to  call  meticulous  care.  Every 
one  of  the  numerous  vignettes  if  studied  with  a 
microscope  will  reveal  a  wealth  of  illustrative 
imagery;  and  the  lettering  is  exquisite.  Mr. 
Macdonald  was  nearly  three  years  in  preparing 
this  royal  gem  of  a  book  —  one  of  the  most 
superlative  examples  ever  issued.  In  some 
cases  he  redrew  a  plate  four  or  five  times  be- 
fore it  finally  suited  his  critical  eye. 

To  this  artist  is  also  accredited  the  remark- 
ably fine  titlepage  in  the  Society's  Tenth  Anni- 
versary Year  Book,  "Gray's  Elegy"  —  the  en- 
tire text  of  which  he  engraved  on  copper  —  the 

[  16  ] 


"Deserted  Village,"  the  Swinburne  publication, 
the  Browning  volumes,  and  finally,  one  of  the 
best  of  all,  the  elaborate  illustrative  titlepage 
to  the  current  Stevenson  publication. 

Furthermore,  the  various  Bibliophile  publi- 
cations will  stand  for  all  time  as  the  finest 
contemporary  examples  of  the  printer's  art,  as 
exemplifying  the  best  work  of  nearly  all  of 
the  important  book  printing  establishments  in 
America,  —  including  the  De  Vinne  Press, 
the  Riverside  Press,  the  University  Press, 
the  Heintzemann  Press,  the  Gillis  Press,  the 
Plimpton  Press,  the  Woodward  and  Tier- 
nan  Printing  Company,  The  Torch  Press,  and 
the  Heliotype  Company.  To  all  of  these 
printers  we  have  paid  the  prices  demanded  for 
the  highest  quality  of  work  they  are  capable  of 
producing.  Cheapness,  as  relating  to  work- 
manship and  materials,  has  always  been  rele- 
gated to  a  subordinate  place  with  the  manage- 
ment, and  the  artists  and  artisans  who  have 
contributed  to  the  artistic,  literary,  and  me- 
chanical make-up  of  our  productions  have  in- 
variably received  as  their  honorarium  a  price 
fully  commensurate  with  the  quality  of  their 
work. 

[  17 1 


A  review  of  the  wealth  of  hitherto  unpub- 
lished literary  material  included  in  the  Biblio- 
phile publications  up  to  the  present  time  would 
require  vastly  more  space  than  can  be  allotted 
to  this  article.  If  it  be  possible  to  measure  the 
value  of  such  material  in  mere  dollars  and 
cents,  let  it  suffice  to  say  that  the  market  value 
of  the  MSS.  printed  for  the  first  time  by  The 
Bibliophile  Society  would  aggregate  nearly 
half  a  million  dollars,  and  that  scarcely  any  of 
this  material  was  known  to  the  public  before  it 
appeared  in  book  form.  Of  the  thirty-three 
publications  —  exclusive  of  the  Year  Books  — 
issued  up  to  date  only  eight  contain  any  consid- 
erable amount  of  published  material,  and  in 
most  of  these  eight  the  text  has  been  revised, 
amplified,  or  corrected  to  conform  with  the 
original  MSS.,  which  were  abridged  or  garbled 
in  previous  editions.  In  reprinting  Thoreau's 
Walden  more  than  ten  thousand  words  were 
added  from  the  original  MS.,  and  in  the  Lamb 
Letters  hundreds  of  omissions  were  supplied 
from  the  manuscript  letters,  while  upwards  of  a 
thousand  misprints  were  corrected. 

And  to  Mr.  Bixby,  more  than  to  anyone  else, 
the  Society  is  indebted  for  these  almost  price- 

[  18  1 


less  literary  treasures  which  we  have  been  able 
to  put  into  type. 

Each  new  publication,  as  it  is  rounded  out  to 
completion  and  added  to  the  list,  may  be  likened 
to  a  new  and  carefully  chiseled  stone  added  to 
a  monument  destined  to  perpetuate  the  memory 
of  The  Bibliophile  Society  down  through  the 
ages. 

It  was  not  strange,  perhaps,  that  occasion- 
ally persons  hearing  of  The  Bibliophile  Society, 
conceived  the  idea  at  first  that  it  was  merely  a 
mercantile  organization.  In  the  early  days  of 
our  corporate  existence  a  well-known  book- 
collector  sent  to  a  friend  of  his  as  a  joke  a  copy 
of  the  original  invitation  and  prospectus,  know- 
ing that  he  had  never  bought  but  one  set  of 
subscription  books  in  his  life,  and  that  he  had 
been  badly  "bitten"  on  that.  "Here  is  another 
chance  for  you,"  wrote  the  worthy  collector, 
and  the  friend  signed  the  application,  as  he 
afterward  admitted,  simply  "to  see  what  the 
game  was."  He  subscribed  to  the  Horace,  and 
liking  it,  he  took  the  next,  which  was  Dibdin's 
Bibliomania.  His  wife  became  enthusiastic 
over  the  books  and  his  capture  was  complete. 
He  began  to  collect  other  books  and  before 

[  19  ] 


many  years  had  a  choice  library  of  more  than 
three  thousand  volumes,  of  which  the  succes- 
sive issues  of  The  Bibliophile  Society  formed 
the  key-stone.  A  few  years  later  the  friend 
who  had  jestingly  sent  him  the  application- 
papers  himself  applied  for  membership  and  was 
on  the  waiting-list  for  nearly  a  twelvemonth 
before  he  could  be  admitted. 

This  seems  to  be  the  proper  time  and  place  to 
speak  of  the  membership  of  the  Society.  Any- 
one casting  an  eye  over  the  list  printed  at  the 
end  of  each  Year  Book  will  find  there  the  names 
of  the  greatest  book-collectors  of  the  country. 
While  it  was  not  originally  intended  to  include 
other  than  private  collectors,  a  few  Public  Li- 
braries have  by  special  request  been  admitted 
to  membership,  and  the  archives  of  nearly  all 
these  institutions  now  contain  the  complete 
series  of  the  Bibliophile  issues :  The  Library  of 
Congress,  the  British  Museum,  Columbia  Uni- 
versity Library,  The  Forbes  Library,  the  Bos- 
ton Athenaeum,  the  Hackley  Public  Library, 
the  New  York  Historical  Society,  the  New 
York  Public  Library,  and  the  Worcester  Pub- 
lic Library.  Other  like  institutions  may  per- 
haps be  admitted  from  time  to  time. 

[    20    ] 


The  writer  has  found  it  a  great  source  of 
pride  and  pleasure  to  be  connected  with  The 
Bibliophile  Society,  both  in  an  official  capacity 
and  later  in  occasional  service  as  a  sort  of  back- 
stairs literary  counsellor.  He  has  been  enam- 
ored of  its  romance ;  for  what,  after  all,  is  more 
romantic  than  to  witness  the  creation  and  birth 
of  a  beautiful  book  or  family  of  books?  There 
is  a  fascination  in  correcting  such  proofs  as 
have  come  in  year  after  year  and  in  seeing  the 
perfectly  printed  sheets  take  their  orderly  places 
in  the  trim  volumes,  like  soldiers,  straight  and 
well-groomed,  arranging  themselves  in  com- 
panies and  regiments. 

There  are  many  pleasant  memories  connected 
with  the  meetings  of  the  Council ;  the  satisfac- 
tion of  adding  to  the  membership  some  distin- 
guished book-collector,  the  hearing  of  letters, 
some  expressing  enthusiastic  satisfaction  at  the 
latest  publication,  and  occasionally  —  only  very 
occasionally  —  others  indulging  in  captious  crit- 
icism; others  recommending  some  absolutely 
impossible  reprint,  and  so  on. 

It  is  but  natural  that  any  successful  enter- 
prise should  have  its  imitators,  and  The  Biblio- 
phile Society  has  proved  to  be  no  exception  to 

[    21    ] 


the  rule.  Its  name  in  a  slightly  modified  form 
was  used  some  years  ago  in  publishing  a  volu- 
minous set  of  books  purporting  to  contain 
pretty  much  all  of  the  best  literature  in  the 
world,  and  even  some  of  the  members  them- 
selves were  misled  to  subscribe,  thinking  the  set 
was  necessary  in  order  to  retain  the  continuity 
of  their  Bibliophile  series.  Another  Bibliophile 
Society  was  incorporated  in  New  York  State, 
but  thus  far  it  seems  to  have  come  to  no  frui- 
tion. The  instigators  of  these  schemes  appear 
to  have  been  silenced  by  the  wholesale  expose 
sometime  ago,  of  de  luxe  book  swindles,  and  the 
resultant  prosecution  of  several  of  the  self- 
styled  publishers  and  publishers'  agents  who 
brought  the  term  "de  luxe"  into  such  odious 
prominence  that  no  booklover  has  since  dared 
apply  it  to  any  of  his  books,  unless  perhaps  it  be 
one  with  which  he  was  "stung." 

The  well  deserved  fame  of  The  Bibliophile 
Society,  based  wholly  upon  the  record  of  its 
publication  work,  should  give  every  member 
good  cause  to  glow  with  pride  on  account  of 
the  unique  position  it  occupies  in  the  world  of 
fine  books.  It  is  the  largest  book  society  ever 
formed  and  at  the  end  of  sixteen  years  of  exis- 

[    22    ] 


tence,  although  many  members  have  passed  on, 
the  broken  ranks  have  been  immediately  filled 
from  the  waiting-list,  and  at  no  time  since  its 
organization  has  there  been  less  than  five  hun- 
dred forming  the  legal  limit  of  its  associates. 
The  remarkable  cohesion  of  the  membership  is 
due  entirely  to  the  Society's  consistent  plan  of 
bringing  out  each  year  one  or  more  publica- 
tions of  inherent  interest,  not  merely  because 
they  are  club  publications,  but  because  of  the 
literary  and  historic  value  of  their  contents  and 
the  artistic  qualities  of  their  make-up.  From 
the  beginning  the  Society  has  had  a  definite 
purpose  in  view,  and  has  worked  steadily  to- 
ward the  accomplishment  of  that  purpose. 

Some  years  ago  many  of  us  were  led  to  won- 
der if  we  had  not  exhausted  the  unpublished 
material  that  was  worth  printing,  but  diligence 
and  money  are  powerful  agencies  in  uncover- 
ing hidden  literary  treasures,  and  scarcely  a 
year  has  passed  without  our  capturing  some 
unexpected  prize.  The  latest  acquisition,  a 
vast  collection  of  entirely  unpublished  manu- 
scripts by  Robert  Louis  Stevenson,  furnishes 
the  literary  surprise  of  the  age;  and  the  large- 
paper  two-volume  edition  of  these  manuscripts 

[  23   ] 


S  \  S 


just  issued  to  the  members  marks  a  highly  im- 
portant epoch  in  the  Society's  history.  It  is 
probable  that  in  due  time  other  important  items 
may  be  unearthed-  and  revealed  to  the  world 
through  the  medium  of  The  Bibliophile  Society. 
Boston,  January  2,  191 7. 


[  24  ] 


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